Czech man on blue
Click here to view it larger.
Click here to view the back.
What it is:
Cabinet card measuring 4 x 6.25 inches. The image is printed on blue paper.
What I know about it:
Photographer is Jan Langhans of different locations in what is now the Czech Republic. A number is stamped into the lower right corner of the paper, and if that’s the date, then it’s 1903.
Comments:
As I was preparing this post, I Googled the photographer and found another example of his work at a blog I follow called The Cabinet Card Gallery, which in turn directed me to a wonderful website about the photographer, including an extensive selection of his work, here. I thought I should try to see if my guy here is one of the examples shown on the website, but there’s just too much for me to go through right now. I’ll try it another time (but please let me know if you stumble upon him). Since Langhans took portraits of famous people, there’s a chance this is somebody who was notable in his day, though I’m not getting my hopes up. It’s a stately image in any case, and I’m always intrigued by the convention (rare but not scarce) of using blue paper. By the way, the towns mentioned on this card, Budweis and Pilsen, are the German names for the Czech towns, and are indeed the towns from which the beers got their names.
Pics of Then 
Yes, the blue is quite different.
It’s pretty, but it’s not how we’re used to seeing photos.